


The Graveyard Boys

by sun3eater



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, College AU, Flashbacks, Friends to Lovers (kinda), I'm not entirely sure what's going on, Keith has fire powers, Lance has water powers, M/M, Pidge is a brilliant mastermind, Sorry to everyone, but I'm having fun, cause i'm all about that opposites shit, domestic AU, high school friends - Freeform, klangst, lots of early 2000s references, superhero au, this is about to be a Mess, warnings might change
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-21
Updated: 2017-04-20
Packaged: 2018-10-09 00:32:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10399662
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sun3eater/pseuds/sun3eater
Summary: It's been a year. A year since the unrelenting soap opera that was their relationship, and they haven't spoken. Seen each other, of course, without the other knowing. Accidental bookstore run-ins, the occasional Facebook stalk. Neither of them can seem to help it, even though Lance has a girlfriend, and Keith is trying very, very hard to pretend like none of it ever happened. After all, what's an ex-superhero to do but try to forget the very failures that ended his Super career in the first place?





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This is about to be a wild ride.

_**Valview, Florida. Spring 2008** _

     Graveyards have always been a meeting place. A meeting of minds, a meeting of hearts. A place where Humans brush as close as they can against the chaos of loss driven madness. People meet their demons among gravestones, they skirt past the vacant eyes of stone angels whom they hope will save the souls of those lost to them.  
     

     People stare into the face of Loneliness. Meet his hollow, black eyes with silent tears and sweaty, clenched hands.  
     

     But, there are others. As always, there are others.  
     

     There are those who find Life so distant, they have no choice but to take solace among the dead. For the dead don’t ask questions. The dead don’t lower their eyes in judgement. The dead know what it’s like to be unseen. Unheard. Forced silent.  
     

     And it is among the solace of the dead that Keith - a small, black haired child, with eyes like charcoal smudged across a canvas - made his first friend among the living.  
     

     He ought to have known, of course. But Humans are always missing things they ought to have known.  
     

     He ought to have known that the chaos inside of him was enough to consume the whole world.  
     

     He ought to have known that the dead are silent for a reason.  
     

     He ought to have known that the Graveyard would betray him eventually.

-

     The night was thick and black, the rain falling like the vengeance of a god, lightning cracking across the sky in intervals of infinity, illuminating the world into a harsh, grey monochrome before plunging into darkness once more. Keith could hear nothing but the beating of the rain like a thousand footsteps, enough to drown out the wracking, dry sobs of his chest. And beneath his raincoat - red, sopping, the hood long since fallen and bunched around his neck in a useless lump - he was sweltering. A feverish sort of hot, where the sweat made his t-shirt stick to his back and cling to his armpits. A heat that frigid rain water could not seem to beat away.  
     

     His flashlight was doing nothing more than illuminating a two foot crescent before him, leaving the rest of the cemetery in shadow. His shoes were soaked, the mud pulling his steps into a drag. It was a mesh of that and the gnarled roots along the footpath that kept him from running the way he really wanted to.

     And atop all of this, stretching over everything in a great, cloudy canopy - Keith was tired. His chest ached, empty and throbbing beneath the weight of the sixth grade, and the stupid kids in his math class that thought he was weird, and the black cloud inside of him that threatened to escape, and the passive, yet callous looks tossed towards him by Mrs. White, the headmistress of Garrison Street Orphanage, whenever he got sent home with an angry note from his teacher, or whenever he picked a fight with one of the kids he bunked with.  
     

     Or whenever he ran away.  
     

     Keith had never been to the ocean. He’d hardly dipped his toes in a pool. He had no idea how to swim, and didn’t really have any desire to learn. But in his twelve year old mind, ripe with an imagination that both protected him from the world, and scared him with its uncontrollability, Keith could swear that this was what it felt like to be drowning. To have all sense of control ripped from your fingers in an instant, to be swept away by a force of nature that was stronger than you, older than you, that would know more than you ever would learn over the course of your feeble little human life.  
     

     And it was all he could do to try to claw his way back up to the air and breath again.  
     

     Keith stumbled through the graveyard, seeing only a few feet ahead of him, but unafraid of the shadows that lurked about. He had never feared the dead, for the dead listened to him. The graves were there when the voices of the living got a little too loud, and it felt like the world was trying to crush him. The dead were there when all he wanted to do was sit curled up on the ground, knees against his chest, and trace the constellations until the storm in his belly went quiet.  
     

     And he knew the dead would guide him, even in the center of a storm like tonight.  
     

     He followed the headstones, eyes grazing over the names he’d come to know so well, letting them point him with translucent, ghostly hands towards the one place he knew he’d be safe for the night.  
     

_Marianne West._  
_Wilkes Jones._  
_Joanna Martin._  
_Ji-young Kogane._  
_Sung-min Kogane_.  
     

     His heart caught for a moment, and he stumbled, shoes catching at nothing, mud flying as he caught himself, his yellow pool of light trained on the headstones poised side by side.  
     

     He took their presence with a rush of hope, a warm, phantom hand coming from nowhere and brushing his hair from his face. A voice from no one telling him to carry on. So he trudged past his parents, knowing they, too, would still be there after the storm had passed.  
     

     And finally, he came upon it. A grove of willow trees, thick enough to create a canopy, a wide circle almost untouched by the storm, save for a damp sheen over the grass.  
     

     Keith shoved the low hanging branches aside and tumbled into the makeshift sanctuary, his breath already beginning to return to him as the rain ceased to beat down on his head. The smell of wet earth was thick here, a pleasant, calming scent as far as Keith was concerned. This place was shrouded in darkness as well, nothing but a thin, grey light that he could hardly see by.  
     

     But just as Keith did not fear the dead, he did not fear the shadows either. For it was often darkness that deigned to protect him, rather than the light.  
     

     He dropped his backpack to the ground, hoping the things inside weren’t soaked, and turned to rest his back against a tree trunk. He slid down until he was planted on the ground, knees bent, hair dripping down his nose and into his eyes. There was a significant berth around the trunk of the tree that was dry enough so that Keith could conjure the warmth he needed to help coax the chill out of his bones.  
     

     All he needed was a few sticks, really. And that was only so the fire could maintain itself without him having to strain a constant focus on it.  
     

     He snapped a few from the low hanging branches beside him, gathering them in a criss-cross sort of pile, before taking a deep breath.  
     

     Fire needs air to exist, after all.  
     

     With narrow eyes, his brows furrowed towards each other in a stiff concentration that didn’t arise from his mind, but from his gut. And Keith lifted his hand, palm facing down. Slowly, he turned it over, stirring up the thick, damp air in his wake. And beneath the gaze of those eyes like charcoal, a fire came crackling to life.  
     

     With it, the lightning flashed.  
     

     With it came a bright, shrill gasp from somewhere behind him.  
     

     Keith was on his feet in a moment, left hand bracing the rugged trunk of the tree, his right held up like a torch, palm facing the sky, a fresh plume of fire flickering just above it, swiftly conjured by his rage at being caught.  
     

     He swung around to peer into the shadows, casting them away with the ruddy light flickering above his hand. “Who’s there?”  
     

     Before he could yell any longer, before he could try to employ all of the tactics of intimidation he learned from watching the crap out of Dragon Ball Z, his gaze landed on the trespasser.  
     

     And was shocked to find that he recognized the face.  
     

     There was a moment where the world seemed to pause, nothing moving but the rain still steadily pouring, though even that seemed to succumb to the slowing of time. Keith blinked, his breath heavy, something strange turning in his chest. “K-katie?”  
     

     Peering out from behind the tree trunk, round glasses opaque with the reflection of Keith’s flames, crouched the sixth-grade prodigy, Katie Holt. She wore a pair of green overalls and a white t-shirt. Her backpack was sprawled open beside her, and there was a strange, blocky sort of contraption clenched between her pale hands. “Oh my god, how are you doing that?”  
     

     Keith blinked again, shoulders rigid. “Doing what?”  
     

     “Uh, gee, I don’t know, how are you conjuring fire from your hands like you’re the freakin’ Avatar?” Her voice rose with the words and she leaned forward, but whether from excitement or exasperation, Keith couldn’t pinpoint.  
     

     He closed his hand immediately, snuffing out the fire, and allowing all the shadows to close back in around him.  
     

     Before his eyes could adjust, Keith heard Katie let out a sigh, paired with some shuffling, before a white light flicked on. And there she was again, peering at him through her glasses with lowered eyebrows, flashlight poised upwards so the light would bounce off the branches and diffuse around them.  
     

     “Alright, let’s try this again. You’re Keith, right? Don’t we have pre-algebra together?”  
     

     “Um...yes.”  
     

     “Well, it’s funny running into you here, Keith. Are you also here searching for beings of the cryptid variety?”  
     

     Not only was Keith stiff with a vibrating fear and his mounting horror at the knowledge that someone had seen him, seen his powers, seen the one stupid thing he tried the hardest to keep under wraps. But in addition, Katie had the tendency to talk like a walking thesaurus, leading a startled Keith even further into inaction. It took him a moment to really latch onto anything she was saying. But once he did, something else began to bloom in his chest. Something that was beginning to combat the fear. “You’re into cryptids?”  
     

     “Well of course I’m into cryptids. What do you think I do all day, Keith, besides try to teach myself calculus, hack into my brother’s cell phone, and sell my soul to suburban conspiracy theories? Which, by the way, means I have to ask... are you a cryptid? Because shooting fire from your hands isn’t something that’s really seen outside of prime time television, and the occasional film adaptation.”  
     

     Keith shook his head, lowering his hands finally, bending and stretching his fingers as he tried to shake the tension out of his shoulders. “No. No, I am not a cryptid.”  
     

     “Oh.” She seemed to deflate a little, another small sigh escaping her as her shoulders curled in a little further.  
     

     “But I like cryptids,” Keith said, leaning cautiously forward to peer at the machine in Katie’s hands.  
     

     At this, she perked up, raising an eyebrow, mouth curving into one sided smirk. There was a glint in her eye that could’ve been the light bouncing off her glasses, but seemed to be drawn out of Katie herself. “Have you heard of The Galra?”  
     

     Keith cocked his head, something pleasant now rising inside of him. An excitement. “No. What’s that?”  
     

     Katie snickered and waved him over, dropping her machine into her lap before rummaging through her backpack, pulling out an old notebook, thick with added pages, and post-it notes sticking out haphazardly from all sides. There was a ballpoint pen clipped liberally to the outside cover, and Katie snatched it up, trapping the instrument behind her ear before flipping the monstrosity open, flicking the pages until she found the one she wanted.  
     

     Keith let out a quiet gasp as he watched her. Every page was filled with Katie’s scratchy, reckless handwriting, paired with fuzzy pictures that had clearly been printed off the Internet and glued to the pages, post-its in pink and green and blue tabbed here and there, marking things that Keith both recognized and didn’t.  
And here, on the page she landed on, was a long set of handwritten paragraphs, recounting the legend of The Galra, it’s name scrawled in all caps across the top of the page. Paired with it was another blurry image of an unidentifiable mass lurking among a grove of trees.  
     

     “The Galra,” she began, eyes bright, “is this great, purple beast that’s said to lurk around the suburbs of Valview, Florida, often found around churches, empty parking lots, and cemeteries,” she wiggled her eyebrows, “thus why I’m here. No one can seem to decide if it’s trying to kill people or not, but so far all that’s been agreed upon is that it’s big, furry, and purple, with huge glowing eyes.” She made circles against her classes with bent fingers to demonstrate. “Whether the eyes glow violet or yellow is also up for debate.”  
     

     “Cool.” Keith, wide-eyed and breathless, tried hard to further express how incredible he thought this discovery actually was, but his words had never been very reliable to begin with. He stared at Katie’s notebook, tracing her words with eyes, his fascination stumbling over a peak. If Katie was out here looking for The Galra, then Keith was on board for the adventure.  
     

     Soon, after the silence stretched languidly between them, filled nicely by the rain that was beginning to slow, Katie leaned towards him. “So...are you gonna tell me how you managed to get fire powers? Or am I just gonna have to stick around long enough to figure it out myself?”  
     

     Keith began to gnaw at his lip, looking up from the notebook to meet Katie’s eyes. Though what he found there wasn’t malice at all. There was mischief involved, along with a sharp curiosity that seemed to overflow. But there was kindness there, as well. And it was different from the way anybody had ever looked at him. “I don’t really know how to answer that,” he said finally, grimacing at his own words.  
     

     Katie studied him for a moment, that curiosity flickering, like light bulbs dimming and brightening in succession. Then her gaze shattered, ferocity dying down, and she gave him a shrug before stretching her spine and yawning into the night. She tilted her glasses up with a knuckle to rub at her eye as she spoke. “That’s okay, you don’t have to tell me. But don’t think I won’t figure this out, Keith. I know things.”  
     

     Keith laughed, a sound that sent a bird fluttering from its slumber in the branches above, and had Katie giving him a smile of amusement. The shake of it broke through his chest and let a pale light into him - made him forget for a moment that he was here because he was running. “Alright, I guess I can live with that.”  
     

     Katie shook her head at him, still grinning, but now with sleep-glazed eyes. “Well, the rain’s stopped, so I think it’s time I head back now, and actually get some sleep like my parents think I should.”  
     

     “You’re gonna walk home alone in the middle of the night?”  
     

     She snorted. “I live right across the street, Keith. Trust me, I wouldn’t be out here if I didn’t.”  
     

     Katie rose to her feet, stretching a little, before packing her stuff away. It was a moment before she looked at him again. “Are you gonna be okay out here? You can come back to my house if you don’t know how to get back home.”  
     

     Keith was shaking his head without even giving himself the chance to consider, though it was hard to ignore the warmth that pricked at his chest in wake of her gesture. “No, I’m fine, I...I do this all the time.”  
     

     The look was back. That look of intent, where her brows furrowed, and her eyes seemed to lighten from the inside. When she finally let out a breath and straightened her back, bag slung over her shoulders, she didn’t look the least bit satisfied with Keith’s answer. But she gave him a nod. “Okay. Just be careful.” And then she was making her way out, parting the willow’s branches with small fingers, opening the path back out into the world. She turned over her shoulder one more time, and gave Keith a sleepy nod. “See you in class, firebender.”  
     

     And with a wet rustle of leaves, she was gone.  
     

     Keith sat staring into a crackling flame of his own creation for a long time after that. Watching the reds and oranges writhe and dance above his open palm.  
 

_Firebender._  
     

     He chuckled to himself in the darkness, quietly pleased.  
     

     And later, as he doused the flames, exhaustion creeping up on him, turning all of his thoughts into watercolor flurries, he decided. He could be a firebender.  
     

     He would like that.


	2. I Had A Dream Last Night We

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lance is having a pretty average day - easy car rides, fighting bad guys, the usual. But, today, he finds himself facing an enemy fiercer than anything he'd ever imagined.

**_Stonespring, Florida. Fall 2016. Present._ **

 

    It was never until he was in the heat of the moment that Lance remembered that he, at some point, wanted to compile a list of all the weird places he’d been forced to strip. Said list thus far would include: beneath a booth in Denny’s at 2 am; his girlfriend’s parents’ closet; an empty lecture hall; and now? The passenger’s seat of a moving car, with poor, learners-permit Mateo at the wheel.

    “Lance, oh my god, I’m gonna fucking crash.”

    Lance scoffed, fumbling his way out of his clothing, his feet braced against the corners of the car floor in effort to keep himself upright. “What would mom say about your language if she could hear you, right now?

    Mateo was gripping the wheel with a force so great that his knuckles had gone pale and his eyes were blown wide as he peered down the road, trying to stay in the right lane. “Oh, fuck off. It’s not my fault there’s been another god damned explosion.” His words were not unusual, but his voice quivered as they left him.

    At this moment, Siri decided to interject: _In 2.4 miles, turn right on East Monroe Avenue._

    It was only after the music returned that Lance realized what was playing -

    ‘ _You think I’m pretty without any makeup on-_ ’

    Lance would’ve responded to Mateo - if he hadn’t gotten his sweatshirt tangled around his arms and head, thus preventing him from seeing or _saying_ anything. Even worse? He _loved_ this song. But did he have the time or the ability to give Katy Perry’s smash hit the full vocal appreciation it deserved? Of course not.

     ‘ _You think I’m funny when I tell the punchline wrong-_ ’

    It was ten o’clock in the morning, an easy Thursday, and about twenty-five minutes ago, Lance had been fully expecting to take an easy drive with his brother, maybe grab some lunch before heading off to afternoon classes, and then meeting up with Hunk for a movie night without so much as a spilled cup of coffee. But as he and Mateo cruised down the highway, Lance had been surfing through radio stations only to catch a report of an explosion that had happened a few blocks over at the Civic Building. Over the course of the next fifteen minutes or so, they’d heard a total of three updates, between the radio and Lance checking the news app on his phone. According to the compiled information, the windows on the top three floors of the building had been blasted to smithereens all at once, the bottom floor was on fire, and there ‘may or may not’ be a strange, hulking figure stalking it’s way back and forth across the roof.

    Since the first news report, the streets had devolved into a sort of controlled chaos, with people reworking their routes to either avoid the building or to take a look themselves, and Mateo wasn’t a very good driver to begin with.

    So Lance, after throwing the address into the GPS, and forcing Mateo to drive him to the scene, was trying to pull it together.

     _In .5 miles, turn left onto 34th Street._

    ‘ _You make me feel like I’m living a-_ ’

    His jeans were in rumpled pools around his calves, and both tennis shoes were half off. His sweatshirt and t-shirt were now tangled together around his raised arms, feeling increasingly like a special sort of handcuffs. So, all things considered, Lance was fully exposed - the bright blue emblem of his super suit getting its first taste of sunlight in over a week.

    Mateo’s voice was still a little wary, but determined. “You’re drawing eyes bro, you’ve gotta hurry the fuck up. And we’re almost there.”

    Lance made a muffled noise before finally tearing himself away from the clingy fabric, and kicked off his jeans. After a quick rummage through his backpack, he pulled his mask from it’s snug location and pressed it to his face, the sticking sensation so familiar now that it was a both a comfort and a rush of adrenaline at once.

    ‘ _Teenage dream, the way you turn me on-_ ’

    With his eyes trained on the road ahead of the, steeped in confusion with cars swerving to try to avoid the aftermath, and police cars zooming by the their sirens on, Lance offered Mateo an expert smirk. “Slow down a bit? You can drop me off here.”

    ‘ _Let’s take a chance and DON’T EVER LOOK BACK, DON’T_ ’

    “You want me to pull over?” Mateo looked rapid fire from the road to Lance then back again, making another jerking swerve.

     _In 1.3 miles, turn left on Augusta Boulevard. The destination is on your right._

    ‘ _I CAN’T SLEEP, let’s run away and don’t-_ ’

    “Did I tell you to pull over? No, I want you to slow down. And that doesn’t mean slow down to an almost stop, it means slow down by maybe a mile or two.” Lance looked over to find Mateo staring bewilderedly at him, one eyebrow raised, mouth open around words that he couldn’t seem to form, and he rolled his eyes. “Dude, just do it. And make sure you tell mom where I am, you know she’s gonna ask a million questions.”

    Mateo shook his head and turned back to the road. “Alright, whatever you say. If you fucking die, those exact words are going on your gravestone.”

    Lance rolled his eyes and flicked the doors unlocked, one hand poised gently on the handle for Mateo’s signal.

    “Slowing now,” Mateo said as they came up on a curb.

    “Thanks bro, I’ll call you later. Maybe then I can actually teach you how to drive.”

    “Oh shit, you’re gonna get me arrested-”

    Lance yanked the handle, the car door flying open, and he launched himself out in a practiced tuck and roll. In a blur of movement, and a less than pleasant scrape along his back, Lance was standing on the sidewalk, a circle of people around him looking on in various stages of astonishment. There was one, a little boy with dark skin and a red jacket, staring up at him with his mouth wide open. Lance chuckled, reminded of an old picture of his six year old self taken upon meeting Spider Man for the first time at Universal Studios. He chuckled, smiling down at the kid, and offering him a two fingered salute, before taking off, breaking quickly through the crowd to a chorus of gasps, crossing the final two streets to reach the Civic building.

\---

 

    When Lance woke up, he was crying. His whole body ached, seeming to creak and moan like an old house on the verge of collapse. And the world was so dark and black that it took him a long time to know whether his eyes were truly open or not.

   He was curled on his side against cold concrete, hands tied tightly behind him with a rough rope. He had to angle his neck to try and dry his cheeks on his shoulders, shaking his head as if that would cast the fog out of his mind.

     _The beast had called himself Zarkon._

    There was a flicker of surprise in Lance’s belly upon even remembering - his vision had already started going dark when he’d heard it, one massive claw clenched hard around his throat, threatening to crush him within nothing but an inch of movement.

    ‘ _I am Zarkon. But you can call me Emperor.’_

    Lance had never been so overpowered before.

    He blinked in the darkness, his eyes slowly adjusting to the dim light. It was barely there, but it was welcome enough - a reminder that he was still alive. That there was still a way out.

     _When Lance had hit the roof that day, the sun had been relentless, making the concrete sizzle, and turning glass shards into blinding reflections. And sure, he hadn’t had enough water that day. And maybe he hadn’t stretched in a while, and maybe he’d been letting his feelings get the better of him._

_But that didn’t mean he hadn’t been ready, he was_ ready _. He’d hit that roof with just as much vigor as he would have facing an enemy so well known they could’ve been old friends. He went with that tingling feeling in his blood, an eagerness that always served to propel him into focus, to keep him ready and on his toes in battle._

_But, admittedly, Zarkon was unlike anything he’d ever seen before._

    It was a long time before Lance was able to sit up. He had to muffle a cry as he did so, whole body shivering as he forced himself to sit, breathing ringing loud and heavy in his chest, his back and shoulders begging for nothing but rest.

_When Lance had hit the roof that day, the figure was facing away from him - a product of Lance’s own design. It was lucky, he figured in retrospect. If Zarkon had seen him coming, he wouldn’t have lasted five seconds._

    Lance extended his fingers and wiggled his toes, stretched his back out as far as he could before the pain became unbearable. He tugged at his bindings, finding them tight and unyielding. He spread his legs out before him to wake them up, stretching and releasing, stretching and releasing. All the while, fighting a fatigue so ferocious it was like something trying to take over both his body and soul and rip them both to shreds.

    _When Lance had hit the roof that day, there was a figure standing towards the edge, facing away from him, with a thick cape blowing in the wind. He was stately, almost. Could have been regal. Except, there was something not quite right. The figure was hulking, but far beyond the reaches of any human. And where his hands ought to have been, there were massive, purple claws that hung down by his sides, clenching and unclenching._

Lance’s chest had gone tight at the sight of them.

    The fight, in his mind, had devolved into nothing but white flashes, blurs of things he’d said in snarky intonations, and every glimpse he’d gotten of that face - panes drawn unnatural, eyes as hollow as a dead man. And if Lance could remember correctly - despite the glare of the sun, and the brightness of the day, those eyes glowed. A sickly violet that had made him want to cry.

    ‘ _Tell your friends to prepare themselves - for the_ rise _of the_ Galra.’

    He’d flung Lance around like he was a plush toy.

    After stretching himself out, unfolding weakly like an accordion, Lance peered down at himself to examine his suit.

    It had done its job. There was not a single tear in the suit that he could see, so he suffered no brutal cuts, no gashes. Though the thick cracks coming from his legs and chest spoke of quieter wounds.

    Stumbling back into himself, Lance tried to steady his breathing, rocking gently until he could breathe without wincing, until he could no longer hear his heart beating double-time. And he put his suit to work. After searching for the tiny button, and a few rough shifts of his wrist, Lance manage to activate the retractable blade hidden in his sleeve, and began slicing away at his woven bonds.

    He wasn’t sure how long it took, the blade being so thin, and the rope being so thick, but he tried not to think about it as he worked. With a great sigh of relief, and a small flurry of hope flitting about his stomach, he tugged on the bonds and they fell away.

    He shifted his shoulders and stretched his back out, rubbing at the red marks blotching his wrists, and wriggling his fingers to get his blood moving.

   Another search of himself proved that the suit had done its job once again. On the inside of his thigh, trapped between the durable fabric, was a pouch that opened by a concealed zipper - and there was his phone, still with power, still intact.  

    With fumbling fingers, he slipped the phone from it’s pouch and the screen came to life, revealing missed texts and calls from Hunk, Mateo, his mom, Gabriella -

    In a flurry, he went to text his mom, typing out a quick message to say that he was okay, and -

    The message didn’t send.

    It was only after that Lance’s gaze jumped to the top left corner of the screen.

    No signal.

     _Fuck_.

    He swallowed the urge to fling his phone against the wall, and took a deep breath, running his fingers through his hair.

    “Alright, Lance,” he whispered as softly as possible, finally taking in the cell around him. “We’ll figure this out, just...just give it a minute.”

    There really wasn’t anything to look at. It was a tiny space, only about an inch or two left above his head in his seated position. He was resting against the far wall, but the cell only extended a few feet before him, just enough for him to stretch out his long legs with couple inches to spare.

    At this point his eyes had finally adjusted to the darkness and he could see a hallway just beyond the barred gate that kept him inside. He’d thought earlier that said hallway was just as dark as his cell, but he came to realize now that this wasn’t true. There was an eerie, purple glow coming from somewhere above.

    It reminded him of Zarkon, and he shuddered.

    Shifting so he was on all fours, Lance crept his way forward to peer through the bars, trying to see down either side, when footsteps began to approach.

    He launched himself backwards and pressed against a wall, holding his breath as the brisk footsteps approached.

    His heart was pounding as they got closer and closer -

    Only to pass him by without so much as lingering near his cell.

    He let out a breath and shook his head, creeping back towards the bars again to peer out. He could only see so far to either side, but it was nothing but a hallway, with purple lights lining the ceilings.

    He wanted to assume they were fluorescent...but now he couldn’t be so sure.

    Lance searched for a lock, a keyhole and found nothing. It took a few more moments of further inspection for him to stumble upon what he thought was a smooth screen on the wall outside his cell, just to the left of the gate. He ran his fingers over the surface and thought.

    There was something at work here that he knew he did not yet understand. Zarkon was...well. Lance didn’t know what he was, but he knew what he wasn’t.

    Human.

     Which meant that everything now was up in the air. There was nothing he could be sure of.

    Knowing it was better to make the attempt than to resign himself, he reached for the other sleeve of his suit and unzipped another secret compartment. Out tumbled a thin, rectangular device that looked deceivingly like a USB. Lance took it up between his fingers and turned it over, running the pads of his fingers over the cool metal, before slipping his hand between the bars, and letting the device attach magnetically to the screen.

    And he waited. His breath loud and hollow in the darkness.

    Soon he heard a click - not from the gate but from the device. He snatched it up and pulled it back into the cell with him, to find a tiny light flashing red - it hadn’t worked.

    Shit.

    He fumbled around, trying to put the thing back into it’s compartment and steady his breathing, when two more sets of footsteps came clacking down the hallway.

    And this time? Voices.

    “What cell is the prisoner in?”

    “24 B.”

    A grunt in response.

    Two gruff, metallic, and unfamiliar voices, sending a thick, freezing shiver down his spine.

    He scrambled backwards again, zipping up all his compartments, concealing his phone and the cracking device, just as two pairs of legs came to a stop outside of his cell.

    There was a whirring sound, and then the click of the gate unlocking, before it slid open with a raucous clang.

    Lance held his breath.

    And then a hand was reaching into the cell, rough and fast, grabbing him by the ankle and dragging him out into the hall, scraping his back against the ground.

    Lance grit his teeth, biting back a cry and steeling himself against whatever battery was about to come.

    He was yanked out into the hallway and blinked up to see two figures - guards, he presumed - both in strange full body armor. He couldn’t really tell whether the armor itself was purple, or if it was only an illusion created by the light - but he didn’t have much time to contemplate it.

    One of the guards reached down and grabbed the collar of his suit and yanked him to his feet, sending him coughing and clutching at his neck to relieve the pressure. “Hope you enjoyed your stay,” the guard said in a vile tone before dropping Lance back to the ground.

    Lance tried to land on his feet, but his legs gave out on him, and he dropped to his knees, curling his fists against the concrete. “What do you want with me?”

    He looked up into the shielded face of the guards, glancing back and forth between the two of them with a heaving chest.

    The first guard surged towards him. “We’ll ask the questions.”

    The second guard held an arm out, stopping the first from reaching for Lance. They say nothing, but the action is effective. The first guard steps back a little, letting out a little sigh. “You’re being relocated.”

    Lance had to clear his throat to speak. “Relocated? To where?”

    The first guard surged again, but then the second guard spoke. “ _Dawson_. I’ll take care of him. Go back and tell the Emperor that I’ve got it under control.”

    Dawson seems to hesitate for a moment, looking between Lance and the second guard.

    “ _Do as I say_.”

    Dawson jolted a little, straightening his back out and giving a nod. “Of course, General.” And he walked away, feet clacking down the hall just as he’d come.

    As Dawson retreated into the darkness, the General reached down and gripped Lance by the arm, pulling him to his feet only to drag him stumbling in the opposite direction.

    He ushered him down the hall, Lance tripping over his own feet, and tugging at his fingers to loosen the grip, but to no avail.

    They turned a corner, down a hallway that looked exactly the same - dark, purple lighting, the left wall lined with cells like animal kennels. Then all of a sudden, they came to a stop, and the General was turning into a corridor and flinging a door open into a dark room.

    He flicked an overhead light on, sending a sickly, yellow light illuminating -

    A broom closet.

    The General shouldered Lance forward into the room before shuffling in behind him and shutting the door.

    Lance pressed against the wall, gripping at his arm where the General had surely left bruises, and looked up into the helmet, trying to find some sort of humanity there.

    And much to his surprise...he found it.

    “Listen to me,” the General said, in a voice much gentler than the one he’d used with Dawson, sending Lance’s whole world even further to a tilt. “I’m gonna get you out of here, alright? But you have to trust me.

    Lance spoke through his heavy breathing. “Well, I don’t have much of a choice, do I?”

    The General reached out and rested a hand on Lance’s shoulder - firm, but gentle. “When we go back out there, you have to act the same as when we came in. We’re gonna go past two guarded doors, and I’m gonna get you outside. But the moment you get out, you have to run. There’s a gas station two minutes away, call a friend, have them pick you up, but you’ve got to be out of sight as soon as possible. I’ll cover for you as long as I can, but it won’t take long before they find out you’re missing. Got it?”

    Lance was nodding before he could think it through, but then he paused. Searched the helmet again. “Why are you helping me?”

    The General paused for a moment. He seemed to take a breath, looking away as he gave Lance’s shoulder a squeeze. “If everything works according to plan...you’ll find out soon enough.” But then the moment was gone, and his shoulders were squared, and he was giving Lance a firm nod.

    And they were clambering back out into the hallway, the General dragging the door quietly shut behind them.

    Lance allowed himself to be dragged past two sets of guards, fumbling over his own steps, eyeing the General every so often with suspicion. He was on edge and wary, but there wasn’t much he could do but trust. In what, however, he wasn’t quite sure.

    It wasn’t very hard to pretend to look weak and helpless. To the point where you might say he wasn’t pretending at all.

    He was almost surprised when they came out onto a barren level, with dusty floors, and sheet covered furniture and _windows_ -

    This was the first time that the building appeared to be abandoned, blue moonlight filtering in through grimy windows, the two of them kicking up dust as they made their way diagonal across the space.

    The General brought him all the way up towards the front door and looked down at him, releasing his grip on his arm. “Remember what I told you? Run to the gas station, call someone to get you.”  
    Lance nodded, putting a hand on the wall to brace himself, managing to stand on his own. After a pause, he looked up into the General’s face, wishing that he could really see it. “Thank you,” he said, voice stronger than he thought he could muster.

    The General nodded to him, taking a pause - before reaching up to the helmet and clicking a button, forcing open the wide eye slit -

    Lance sucked in a breath, the dark eyes striking a chord in his chest. _Human_ eyes. “S-”

    “Shh,” the General pressed a gloved hand over Lance’s mouth. “Like I said. You’ll know. Now _go_.”

    He flung the door open and shoved Lance out into the night, and before Lance could think, he was running -   

    He saw the fluorescent lights of the gas station in the distance.

  


    As he sat in the passenger’s seat of Hunk’s beefy yellow truck, curled up, head resting against the window, Lance closed his eyes. There were a million questions bubbling between the two of them as Hunk sped back into the city, rambling on about how he could’ve died, and how worried everybody was, and why wasn’t his tracker working, and what was everyone supposed to do. But Lance couldn’t find himself to answer any of his question as he breathed through the ache in his bones, clutching his stomach as the air conditioner sent his hair fluttering.

    Soon enough, the car got quiet, nothing but the gentle hum of the car and a soft tune coming from the radio, when Lance felt a big, warm hand resting against his shoulder.

    He cracked his eyes open, and peered over at Hunk. He still had one hand gripping the steering wheel, and the red and green stoplights sent colors pooling over his skin, giving him a runny silhouette.

    Lance rested his own hand atop Hunk’s and gave it a squeeze.

 

    Hunk didn’t take Lance back to their dorm. In fact, he drove them straight past the University without a glance back. No, Hunk went for the extra stretch, putting another hour on their driving time in order to take Lance back home. To his real home.

    When he finally entered, it was dark in the house, the front room television left on, and a dim lamp in the kitchen - but everyone seemed to be awake as he shifted through, weary and with thick thoughts.

    His mom squeezed him tight, cupping his cheek in her hand, searching his eyes with her own. His father came after, checking him for injuries, trying to get ice on his bruises. Gabriella forced some stew down his throat and brushed his hair behind his ears.

    Mateo kept peering at him with a hollow look in his eyes, asking him questions that seemed to dance around something that Lance didn’t have the energy to decipher.

    Sam, the smallest, curled up in his lap as he ate, and fell asleep against his chest after making him promise to be careful next time.

    Lance made it to bed without showering. His bedroom was dark as he entered, nothing but blue moonlight coming in between the curtains. He peeled his suit off and tossed it to the floor, eyes heavy, to find himself marbled with bruises all over. He curled up beneath the cool sheets, and tried not to think.

    It was in a haze that he did this. Between the cool moonlight, and the weight slowly leaving his chest, and the feeling like there was something coming for him that the knew he would never be able to prepare for, he slipped his phone from it’s perch on the nightstand. And he sent Keith the first text between them in over a year.

    ‘You were right. The Galra does have purple eyes.’

\---

 

**_Valview, Florida. Spring 2014._ **

 

    Lance respected secrets. Had some of his own even. But sometimes, the secrets of others blew up in his face, unfolding themselves to reveal sinister truths, ugly and foul in their exhibition.

    It was in the wake of a secret blown wide that Lance sat in his car with the windows rolled up, and the air conditioner blowing loud and frigid.

    The passenger door was left unlocked as he waited.

    He gripped the steering wheel because he didn’t know what else to do, wringing his hands around the worn leather over and over again. It warmed his hands, but did nothing to stop his quaking heart.

    There was a dense, black plume of smoke billowing towards the sky. Lance could hear the fire trucks zooming down the highways some streets over, and he watched two groups of police cars zip by him, sirens blaring.

    He’d parked a few blocks away from the scene of the fire, so the traffic was clear and there weren’t very many people. And even though he was very aware of the chaos going on not too far away, all the sounds were muffled by the grey maze that was the city - all concrete planes, and thick, glass slabs.

    He had the radio on, but the sound was so low, he could only make out a dim tune. He’d thought a while earlier that maybe he should flick it to the news. But he feared that if he did, his heart might rip completely out of his chest with the fury of it.

    For Lance was shivering from his core to his bones - though it wasn’t fear that he was shivering with.

    Lance fumbled around for his phone, fingers thick and numb, and swiped the screen open. There was a waiting text message from Allura that he promptly ignored. She wanted to know why he wasn’t on the scene, and would he be there to help. He brushed past the rising guilt, and opened his latest callers list to peer down at the most recent one.

    Keith.

    His thumb hovered over the name, held back only by the words Keith had said to him before hanging up in hase. _Don’t worry, I’ll be right there. I’ll make it out, just...just wait for me._

    Then, there was a flicker of movement just in his periphery - a bright flash of red - and Lance looked up to see Keith dashing out from between two buildings, feet nimble and silent against the baking concrete, his jacket thrown hasty and haphazard over his super suit. Lo and behold, his mask was still on - a slick strip of black around his eyes, both classic and rugged at the same time.

    God, what a beautiful moron.

    Lance clicked the screen off and gripped his phone tightly between his fingers as Keith threw the door open and jumped in, bringing with him a thick burning scent. He was breathing hard, and Lance bit his lip as he searched Keith’s face, expecting to find a glimmering sheen of sweat.

    But, no.

    Keith tore his mask off, revealing to Lance just how much grime he really had collected. The once protected area around his eyes was pale and clean, bright enough to glow. But the rest of him was a shade darker, flecks of ash and rubble turning him into a creature of ruin. And where there ought to have been sweat, there was none. Instead, there seemed to be a thin layer of steam rising from his skin.

    His eyes on that day were darker than Lance had ever seen them.

    Lance reached out the closest strip of exposed skin he could find - the luminescent sliver where his gloves ended and his jacket began - and brushed it with his fingers.

     _Shit_.

    He jerked away with a hiss, shaking his fingers out like it would stop the burn.

    Keith had always been _warm_. Hugging him sometimes was like snuggling up with a human heating pad. But Lance had never thought a thing of it. He attributed it to genetics, cracked a few jokes about it, and enjoyed it all the more when Keith wrapped his arms around his waist, warming him better than any blanket could.

     _You’re too trusting_ , Gabriella would say. _Somebody smiles at you nicely enough, and you’ll follow them all the way down a lion’s throat_.

    Keith was shuffling about. Shrugging his jacket off, trying to replace his super suit with a t-shirt and jeans without making himself conspicuous, or stripping naked entirely. His hair was in a fuss, sticking out at all angles. And Lance’s stomach writhed at his pressing urge and desire to run his fingers through the wayward strands. To soothe the feverish desperation that so often liked to seize Keith’s heart.

    He cast his gaze down for a moment, dropped his phone in his lap, then turned back to face the road ahead of him one hand wringing the steering wheel once again. But he didn’t put the car in drive. He didn’t make any move to take them from this spot.

    He sat. With that quivering inside of him that was begging Keith to say something. Eager at the chance to let his anger tear a hole right through the god damned car window. Eager to give Keith a piece of his god damned mind.

    It was only after the shuffling stopped. When Keith finally began to settle from a flurry of motion into a stiff sort of calm, a regaining of his bearings. He peered over at Lance, with those wide eyes like embers, lips parted with his breath, and Lance could swear he heard the birth of words tumbling from his tongue -

    Sometimes Keith could look like an angel. Sometimes he was all soft eyes and plush lips, a laugh that spread like fireworks across the sky. He was warm and gentle, and could weave stories out of flame.

    But times like these, all that was tender went spiraling, tearing itself apart until there was nothing but a pitch dark storm that turned him into a human ruin. Made his eyes pools of ink, drew his face in harsh lines and shadow panes.

    Thus, Lance’s patience had run short. And if he didn’t say anything, either something was going to wilt and die inside of him, or something was going to explode. So he spoke before Keith found the voice to. His own voice felt like cracks in the concrete, eyes stuck forward, knowing that if he looked at Keith, he would bend before he could even get started. “When were you going to tell me?”

    Keith blinked, quiet for a moment. When he spoke, his voice was rough, thin as he caught his breath, and somehow too small for his presence all at once. “Is that really the question you’re asking right now?”

    “What other question am I supposed to ask, Keith? I don’t want any of your excuses, I don’t want to hear you try to explain it away, like everything else that you hide from me, I just want to know when _the fuck_ you were planning on telling me. You know what? No, actually. I just want to hear you come out and say it. The truth, I mean. That you weren’t planning on telling me at all.”

    “Lance-”

    “You know, at first I thought you just had a hard time opening up, that you want to be able to trust people. And, you know, I get that. But now, all of a sudden, I get a call at 2 in the afternoon on a Saturday with you begging me to come pick you up because you accidentally set a building on fire, and oh, by the way, you’re a fucking superhero. But, you know, I guess I always get to be the idiot in the equation, huh? I _met you_ , Keith. Met you, as a superhero, and did you say anything. Abso-fucking-lutely not.” Lance stared hard out the window. “I told you everything. You knew almost from day one who I am and what I do, and now it’s ten months later, and the only reason I’m finding this out about you is because you needed somebody to come bail your ass out.”

    “I didn’t need somebody, I needed you, Lance.”  

    Lance scoffed, shaking his head and shifting his grip on the steering wheel. “Oh, you needed _me_. In particular. I don’t see why, it’s not like you trusted me enough to tell me before.”

    “It’s not about how much I trust you. I just...I…” Keith’s breathing had gone ragged, and his fingers were spread in the wake of his floundering. As he shook his head, the steam coming off him got stronger, and Lance could _hear it_ , quietly fizzling, like oil on a stove.

    “Just what? Didn’t want to worry me? We do the same shit, Keith. We both throw ourselves off buildings, and fight lunatics, and put ourselves in danger for _the good of fucking humanity_ , I get it. I’m not gonna try and stop you from doing something I do every day myself.”

    Keith slammed his fists down on the dashboard, his face turned away so Lance couldn’t see. “No, alright? I didn’t want to worry you. I didn’t want you to know that I’m a fuck up even as a god damned superhero. I didn’t want you to have to ask me why I try to protect other people when I can’t even take care of myself. I didn’t want to give you yet another reason to leave me to my own devices.”

    Lance dragged a hand over his face. “If you don’t know what you’re doing, then why don’t you ask for help? The only reason I’m not out there right now, hunting down that asshole that escaped is because I’m here with you. If I had known we could have taken him together, Keith. The world isn’t just this boulder that you have to carry around on your shoulders like you seem to think it is.” Lance was finally looking at him - but Keith wasn’t looking back. So he stared at that mess of dark hair, so black it could have been pulled out of a painting, and he traced the way his shoulders rose and fell with his breath. Strong and lean, and too hunched for his age beneath a punishment of his own creation.

    His super suit, a crimson polyester, was bunched on the floor. Lance took one look at it and saw streaking burn marks in some places, tears in others. They would have to do something about that later.

    There was a stretch where Keith kept starting to say something, then abandoning words before they could come to life. Until finally, as his breath began to slow, and the steam from his skin had come to a stop, Keith looked down, his fists softening into nothing more than curled fingers. He was a broken boy. And Lance ached in his heart to fix his brokenness.

    Keith’s voice was a low shiver. “Are you mad at me?”

    “No. No, Keith I-” He could feel himself bending. It wasn’t all a lie. He was mad, but he wouldn’t say mad - he never stayed mad. He didn’t have it in him. And even if he did, Keith could turn his iron molten, could smooth every angle, melt every hard place inside of him, could mold him like clay if he wanted.

    He couldn’t decide if it was better or worse that Keith didn’t even know he had the power to do so.

    “I’m not mad, Keith. At least, I won’t be forever, I just hate that this is how I found out. This is an incredible thing about you. This is something that a lot people would never give a shit enough to do, much less have the guts to.” His voice softened then, melting a little as he traced Keith’s face. “It’s like you think I’m waiting to discover some awful thing about you that I can use to turn around and make you feel like shit, but I’m not.” He reached out then, letting his fingers slide through Keith’s hair, tucking a strand of it behind his ear, his knuckles lingering against his neck. “All I see is a beautiful boy, who thinks he can fight the whole world by himself. And I think I believe that he can. But god damn, I want to help him do it.

    Keith looked up at him, eyes thick as he leaned into Lance’s touch, almost catlike. There was a building glimmer in his eyes that threatened to overflow, and he shook his head. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I’m really sorry-”

    “Shh…” Lance kept it up, running his fingers through Keith’s hair in a slow rhythm now. “It’s okay.”

    “No it’s not. No it’s not, I should have told you, I…” He leaned in to rest his forehead gently against Lance’s, his skin just as warm as it always was. He still smelled of smoke and ash, and his breathing was still a little ragged. But he was here. And he was alive. And they would be okay.

    Lance brought his hands down to wrap both arms around Keith’s waist, pulling him closer, and Keith softened immediately, winding his arms around Lance’s neck.

    Keith peered at him for a moment, through thick, black lashes, his mouth set. And before Lance could ask him what he was thinking, Keith was kissing him.

    His gentleness was back, unfolding itself in the way their lips pressed together, in the way he sighed into him, the way he seemed to plead Lance’s forgiveness with every movement.

    The more they kissed, the more Lance granted it. First in small encouragements, small presses forward, until he was offering it in spades, until it wasn’t Keith kissing Lance, it was Lance kissing Keith, pulling him into his chest and bending him backwards. Keith was so slender and willing, his back arching inwards beneath Lance’s touches, till their chests were pressed wholly together, with Keith leaning so far back it was like they were dancing. Lance kissed him with a vengeance, as if he could pour all the warmth he had inside of him into Keith with nothing but a smattering of lips.

     _Yes, I want you. Yes, I forgive you. Yes, I-_

    Lance tugged away, still seizing Keith’s waist, but pulling back enough to look him in the face. Their shared breaths were erratic and out of tune, thundering in the dense, isolated quiet of the car. He shook his head, gaze fixed on Keith’s own smudgy eyes. “Don’t hide things like this from me. Please, I just-” He touched their foreheads again. “I want to know you, Keith. I don’t want you to have to hide something so integral to who you are. Just be honest with me.”

    Keith nodded, lips pink and puffy, and brought his hand up to tangle in Lance’s hair. “Okay. Okay, I will, I promise.”

    Lance kissed him again, slow and gentle, hoping that it could draw Keith out of himself long enough for him to realize that he didn’t have to be on his own.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would say that I'm going to try to post regularly with this, but I'm in the midst of the last few weeks of the semester, so that's highly unlikely. Once summer vacay hits, I'll probably be able to fall into a routine, but until then, bear with me.  
> Other than that, I love this chapter, and I'm so excited to continue this story. Please feel free to drop me comments, and catch me on tumblr @leave-hook-to-me!!


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